Cursed | Armando Salazar x OC

EIGHT

"Hand like this... relax your wrist... let the sword do the rest..." Bringing my arm back, I swing the blade at the bedpost again, trying to hit the mark I made earlier. This has been going on for what felt like hours and, honestly, with the constant darkness of the cave it might as well have been a day.

This is my routine now, occupying myself as best as I can, eating an apple when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm tired regardless of the time. For now, all there is to entertain me with is fiddling with the broken music box and attacking the bedpost - my imagination is strong enough to envision the piece of wood being the Capitán of the Silent Mary, thus giving each hack and slash purpose.

I'm anxious for the books to dry so I can start reading them. Without the sun, it takes them longer to dry and I have to flip the pages every hour or so to speed things up. Much to my dismay, I already lost three books to their wet pages and runny ink. I hardly touched the paper sheets before they shredded between my fingers. The ink still stains my nails.

As for the rest of the clothing pieces the officers found at the shipwrecks, most of them are meant for men - those I stuffed together to form a pillow of some sort since the bed doesn't have any. The two dresses among the pile are perhaps a size too small, but I've hung them over the chairs anyway for in case. My own dress I wore before the ghostly crew attacked the Navy ship, dried only recently after my unexpected reunion with the ocean when the crew threw me overboard, meaning I finally get to change out of this current dress and put on my undergarments again.

"Hand like this... relax your wrist... let the sword do the rest..." This time, the blade embeds itself about a finger's length above the original mark and I am an inch closer to achieving my goal.

But upon pulling the hilt to retract the weapon from the wood, I'm annoyed to find that it's stuck.

"No, no, no, no, no," I give it another pull, then a tug, and finally, wiggle the hilt until the bedpost is creaking and groaning, "Damn it!" Accepting that I lost my sword to something as trivial as a bedpost, my shoulders sag while all that's left for me to do is stare at it in defeat.

Until an arm reaches past my head for a pale, cracked hand to latch onto the hilt and pull it free.

My heart speeds up as I turn and come face to face with none other than the Capitán of the Silent Mary himself, the very man I spoke back to and turned my back on what felt like a day ago. Now, he is towering over me with the sword in his hand, and I wonder if he is perhaps considering killing me on the spot to get it over with. To be fair, they don't need me as a prisoner. Henry will return with Jack Sparrow whether I'm dead or not, he'll just never know until he gets here. Which is why I am surprised that I'm still here and alive.

The Capitán looks between the sword and me and tilts his head, "You are not afraid of us, no?"

I shake my head.

He nods absentmindedly as if mulling over my words. I'm guessing it's not every day a crew of Spanish ghost officers encounters a living being who doesn't scream at their appearances. Perhaps that is why only Lesaro and Santos - and Magda a bit - have conversed with me yet. The rest is probably waiting for the moment to come where I'll wake up and realize what they are.

I patiently wait for the Capitán to speak, curious as to why he is here. Since our fallout on the helm, I haven't seen him at all since. In fact, besides Magda, no one came to check up on me to see how I am holding up. It doesn't really bother me, but it is a bit odd that he is the first one to pay me a visit, and not Lesaro or Santos.

At last, he speaks again, "Then why haven't you left the cabin for the past two days?"

"Two days?" I echo, "Has it really been that long?"